When he arrived at the great house in Grosvenor Place, he went at once into the dining-room, and found, though not to his surprise, that dinner was just about over. There were only three persons seated at the long table, which was sumptuously furnished with fruit, flowers, and silver. At the bead was Vin Harris’s father, Mr. Harland Harris, a stout, square-set, somewhat bourgeois-looking man, with a stiff, pedantic, and pompous manner, who nevertheless showed his scorn of conventionalities by wearing a suit of grey tweed; on his right sate his sister-in-law, Mrs. Ellison, a remarkably pretty young widow, tall and elegant of figure, with wavy brown hair, shrewd blue eyes, and a most charming smile that she could use with effect; the third member of the group being Mr. Ogden, the great electioneerer of the north, a big and heavy man, with Yorkshire-looking shoulders, a bald head, and small, piggish eyes set in a wide extent of face. Mr. Ogden was resplendent in evening dress, if his shining shirt-front was somewhat billowy. "What’s this now?" said the pretty Mrs. Ellison to the young man, as he came and pulled in a chair and sate down by her. "Haven’t you had any dinner?" "Good little children come in with dessert," said he, as he carelessly helped himself to some olives and a glass of claret. "It’s too hot to eat food—unusual for May, isn’t it? Besides I had a late luncheon with Lord Musselburgh." "Lord Musselburgh?" put in Mr. Ogden. "I wonder when his lordship is going to tell us what he means to be—an owner of racehorses, or a yachtsman, or a statesman? It seems to me he can’t make up his own mind; and the public don’t know whether to take him seriously or not." "Lord Musselburgh," said Vincent, firing up in defence of his friend, "is an English gentleman, who thinks he ought to support English institutions:—and I dare say that is why he does not find saving grace in the caucus." Perhaps there was more rudeness than point in this remark; but Mrs. Ellison’s eyes laughed—decorously and unobserved. She said aloud— "For my part, I consider Lord Musselburgh a very admirable young man: he has offered me the box-seat on his coach at the next Meet of the Four-in-Hand Club." "And are you going, aunt?" her nephew asked. "Yes, certainly." "Rather rash of Musselburgh, isn’t it?" he observed, in a casual sort of way. "Why?" "What attention is he likely to pay to his team, if you are sitting beside him?" "None of your impertinence, sir," said she (but she was pleased all the same). "Boys must not say such things to their grandmothers."